How to Fly First Class When You're Unemployed

Some of you noticed in the first blog that I mentioned flying first class to Amsterdam AND that I’m unemployed.

It’s true and actually easier than you’d think.

All you have to do is go back in time about 20 years and sign up for a major airline’s frequent flier program. Pick a leader (one that terrorists believe important enough to mess with). Pay the annual fee (just a small $60 hit to the gut once every 365 days) then charge like the wind!

Put everything you can think of on that card. If the ink has long been etched off the raised numbers and the thing routinely fails to scan due to extensive use by the time they send you your new one, you’ve done your job.

One advantage I have is that I’m a live music freak. I love to go to concerts and usually arrange for friends to come along. This necessitates hundreds of dollars in purchases from Ticketmaster every year. By the way, I fully expect to win some sort of lifetime achievement award from Ticketmaster or Live Nation or whatever the single behemoth ticket provider will be at that time.

After a while you’ll notice your frequent flier balance climbing, which is great. However, if you’re like me, you’ll realize that you’re way too busy to take that nice vacation.

This is where getting laid off comes in!

Let’s see… time on my hands and enough frequent flier miles for two first class tickets… Bingo!

Before you get too excited, keep in mind that these programs have changed quite a bit since the 1980s or 90s or whenever it was you signed up. Back in those days, all you had to do was avoid a few “black out” travel days.

Today it’s much more complicated. Rather than designating restricted days, they now assign only a certain ambiguous number of seats per flight, and there are formulas for how many miles you need to get what you want. Add to this the fact that most flights from LA to cities in Europe are not non-stop and you have to deal with availability on multiple flights.

So what did that mean for me?

I spent an hour and 20 minutes on the phone with a ticket agent. Despite the fact that I was extremely flexible on departure dates and destination (Amsterdam or Brussels), we had to try a seemingly endless array of options before agreeing on the final itinerary. I also had to endure the agent complaining several times that booking calls should, according to her management, take less than 15 minutes. I’m like, “In what alternative universe?!”

We ended the call, and when I got the sound of her complaining voice out of my head, I sat back and smiled. Europe, here we come!

And there you have it. Simple, huh?

If you have any questions, let me know. But wait a little bit. I need to book some concert tickets first.

Hopefully I’ll see you on my next first class flight. I’m thinking around 2028. Bon voyage!